On my eighth birthday, I saw
a complete full-sky double rainbow
and thought it was about me.

All summer I ran
through the sprinkler
for more rainbows on the lawn.

At twenty-four, I crawled
through tunnels from cave to cave,
fearing a burst of bats.

No subterranean rivers. No Styx or Lethe
revealed subconscious secrets. Honestly,
I was relieved to surface and breathe.

After my thirty-third birthday, I climbed
Mt. Fuji. At the base, a black sky deployed meteors.
At the peak, a gray sky dropped hailstones.

No summit sunrise in the fog. No guru.
Only numb tongue and cold bones.
Ice and pumice. Obsidian and obstinance.

Published in Hermes Poetry Journal

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